Thursday, July 22, 2021

Cheyenne Summer: The Battle of Beecher Island: A History by Terry Mort -- BOOK BEGINNINGS


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

It's Book Beginnings on Fridays! Time to gather with our fellow book lovers and share the opening sentence (or so) of the books we are reading this week. Or share from a book that is on your mind right now -- whatever catches your fancy. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

My fancy is caught by Cheyenne Summer: The Battle of Beecher Island: A History by Terry Mort (Pegasus Books):

In the summer of 1868 General Phillip Sheridan was commander of the US Army's Department of the Missouri. He was responsible for the vast Plains that were the homelands of some of the most warlike and troublesome of the Native tribes.

-- from the author's Introduction.

The tribe popularly known as Cheyenne called themselves Tsistsistas. The word means, roughly, "people."

-- from Chapter 1, The Cheyenne.  

Cheyenne Summer is a new nonfiction history book about a battle in eastern Colorado during the Indian Wars of the late 1800s. In the Battle of Beecher Island in 1868, Cheyenne and Sioux warriors fought US Army scouts, including two battalions of Black "Buffalo Soldiers." 

Although Mort describes the battle as not strategically significant, he concludes that it was culturally and historically important. He uses the battle to frame a discussion about one of the most transformative periods in America's history -- including a discussion of what motivated the white settlers, the Cheyenne, and the US soldiers, both white and Black.

Having grown up at both ends of the Oregon Trail -- Nebraska as a child and Oregon from a teenager on -- I've picked up some of the sad history of how our country treated the Native Americans during the settlement of the Western frontier. But there is a lot to learn. This new book is an interesting place to start.  

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings blog or social media post in the Linky box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings. 

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56
From Cheyenne Summer:
Not surprisingly, Texas was a particularly thorny problem -- not only did Texans dislike Reconstruction, but the Comanche and the Kiowa and some Kiowa Apache were continuing their own form of resistance and depredation. . . . On one of his visits General Sheridan once said if he owned both hell and Texas, he'd live in hell and rent out Texas.




7 comments :

  1. This sounds like an interesting book. I hope you have a great weekend!

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  2. The history of the American West has always fascinated me, so I'd love to read this book.

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  3. This sounds super interesting! I'm slowly reading my way through 'The Apache Diaspora' by Paul Conrad which is really fascinating but also deeply sad. Thanks for hosting and I hope you have a lovely weekend :)
    Juli @ A Universe in Words

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  4. I hope you enjoy your book! Happy reading :)

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  5. Hi there Gilion! I really don't know a lot about American history. Except for the basics we pick up here and there and then it's more "modern day" history. Seems like an interesting read!

    Have a good weekend!

    Elza Reads

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  6. Sounds interesting! Happy weekend!

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  7. Hi Gilion! HI! Yeah I know I'm late! lol I've been playing along each week but forgetting to actually join in! So hopefully this is the first of many more to come! Here is my Book Beginnings and Friday56, although very late, just in case you're still playing!

    I love stories about the Cheyenne people, will have to look this one up.

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